“You can’t have just two decent suits, Syler! And I’ve got it on good authority that the rest of your lovely finds need just as much taking in so don’t think I’m not expecting you to deliver them once this is finished.” Syler nodded, utterly resigned. At least it wasn’t black.
“Well don’t you look handsome.” Syler turned towards the lilting voice of his agent, surprised. He hadn’t heard the shop bells chime.
“Francesca, darling! How are you?” Gerald dropped his measuring tape and turned to greet the slim woman. She pressed an indulgent kiss to his cheek, red lips stretched into a fond smile, long dark waves spilling gracefully over her left shoulder.
“Lovely, thank you. I’ve just returned from Peru.” She glided over to Syler, coming to rest behind him, running her hands lightly up his shoulders as she did. “And look what you’ve done with our dear Deputy Director. The color suits you well.”
“Hello Agent Garcia. No trouble, then?” He felt his cheeks flush despite himself, embarrassed by the attention.
She smiled fondly. “None beyond finding a partner for the evening. I don’t suppose you dance, Mr. Perrin?”
“Terribly.”
Her laughter was like a gentle wave, as soothing as the hands working over his shoulders. The casual display reminded him of why she was one of their most skilled political infiltrators. Syler wondered at this being a coincidental meeting. “I’ll teach you over sangria. Salsa is always especially entertaining on All Hallows Eve.”
“It’s the 30th.”
“Not for much longer. Come on, cariño, Arthur has kept you all to himself for entirely too long. Time you got to know the rest of us,” she teased, her soft accent washing over him, lulling and cajoling in equal measures.
He huffed. “Yes, alright, fine, but don’t be shocked if I step all over you.”
She grinned, victorious, before turning back to Gerald. “When you’re done with our darling director-to-be, might I trouble you for my new dress, Gerald? We’ve got a town to paint red.”
---
Several hours later, he found himself in the corner booth of an upscale night club, sandwiched between Francesca and Miranda, pleasantly buzzed. Across the table, Maria was engaged in a whispered conversation with the agent, their Spanish distinctly conspiratorial. He turned to Miranda, writing them both off.
“Jason has the department for the weekend, right?”
Miranda rolled her eyes at him, long braids swaying as she shook her head. “Yes, so no more shop talk. It took enough planning to get you out here tonight.” She pressed another glass of wine into his hand, expression daring him to argue.
“You sent Francesca, didn’t you?”
“Yes, cariño, it’s called having a life outside of the office,” the agent responded, apparently done plotting with Maria and leaving him with three sets of eyes focused intently on him. When these women inevitably informed him of their intentions to take over the world, he decided, he was going to step aside and let them.
“You could’ve just asked, you know.”
Miranda scoffed. “We wanted you, not Dufault too. I get enough of his whining on game nights.”
“I hear my friend has taken to following you around like a little puppy dog,” Garcia continued, unrelenting.
“He really, really has,” Maria chimed in, pulling out her phone. “There are photos. Do you want to see?” Francesca’s eyes lit up. Syler sputtered. What in the fresh hell?
As she swiped through them—them, plural, as in multiple photos, apparently taken by multiple people, all of Dufault following him around the office—Syler sunk lower into his seat, fortifying gulps of wine all that stood between him and a painful death by humiliation. When Francesca got to the last one, she let out a soft ‘oh,’ passing the phone back to Maria before he could see what the hell was on it. “I see,” she concluded. “So, Perrin, what are you going to do about it?”
“Absolutely fucking nothing,” he snapped. “Look, I realize that the entire agency is laboring under the impression that Dufault is interested in me. It was even kind of funny at first, but this has gotten entirely out of hand.”
“Out of curiosity,” Miranda muttered, “just how deep would you say the Nile River is in miles?”
“Oh for fuck’s sake!” Syler threw back what remained of his wine, entirely done with this conversation. “I am his handler. He is my agent. We work field ops together. On a good day, we’re friends, and that’s how it’s going to stay regardless of whatever passing crush you all think he has on me.”
“Why?” Maria inquired quietly.
“Because we have to work together? Because men like that don’t stay with men like me? Because I get entirely too attached? Oh, wait, I forgot one!” Syler snarled, “Because the mortality rate among field agents scares the shit out of me. Really, take your fucking pick!”
He slumped back in his chair, exhausted and suddenly entirely too sober for this conversation. “If you’d all just leave it,” he sighed, “I’d really appreciate that.”
Maria looked chastised, while Miranda nodded, sipping at her beer pensively. Francesca signaled the bartender, calling for another round, and changed the subject deftly to teaching him to dance. Currently, he decided, she was his favorite.
Twenty
Monday morning came with a three a.m. call from the Director herself, notifying him of an ongoing cyber attack on the NSA and rousing him from bed with all the frenzy a fire alarm provoked. His presence was requested immediately to provide support to their sister agency. He was on the phone with Maria before he had finished dressing, receiving updates even as he stepped into the bullpen fifteen minutes later.
“Do we know who it is yet?” Protocol dictated that any security breach of a US agency sent all others into a Priority One ready status, prepared to rebuff any potential attacks on their own systems and ready to provide aid to one another.
“Trace keeps bouncing,” Maria replied, both hanging up their phones as they came into ear shot of one another. Miranda was en route, as was the Colonel. Jason stood at the desk nearest the command
